A Life in Letters by George Orwell
Yours
Eric
[XII, 585, pp. 6-7; handwritten]
1.Orwell adapts line 22 of Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress', where the chariot is Time's.
To Geoffrey Gorer*
3 April 1940
The Stores
Wallington
Dear Geoffrey,
I was very glad to get your letter & know you are at any rate fairly comfortable & congenially employed. All is very quiet on the Wallington front. Like nearly everyone else I have completely failed to get any kind of 'war work'. But I am trying very hard to join a Gov.t training centre & learn machine draughtsmanship, partly because I want a job, partly because I think it would interest me & as I fancy we are all going to be conscripted in one form or another within about a year I'd rather do something more or less skilled, & partly because I think it might be well to come out of the war having learned a trade. However I don't know whether it will go through yet. Eileen is still working in a Gov.t department but if we can possibly afford it when our affairs are settled I want to get her out of it, as they are simply working her to death besides its making it impossible for us to be together. I dare say we could get by if I stuck simply to writing, but at present I am very anxious to slow off & not hurry on with my next book, as I have now published 8 in 8 years which is too much. You didn't I suppose see my last (Inside the Whale) which came out a few weeks back. There is one essay in it that might interest you, on boys' weekly papers, as it rather overlaps with your own researches. You remember perhaps my saying to you some years back that very popular fiction ought to be looked into & instancing Edgar Wallace. This essay was published first in a slightly abridged form in Cyril Connolly's monthly paper Horizon, & now the editor of the Magnet, which you no doubt remember from your boyhood, has asked for space in which to answer my 'charges'. I look forward to this with some uneasiness, as I've no doubt made many mistakes, but what he'll probably pick on is my suggestion that these papers try to inculcate snobbishness.1 I haven't a copy left to send you but you might be able to get it from the library. There is an essay on Dickens that might interest you too. I find this kind of semi-sociological literary criticism very interesting & I'd like to do a lot of other writers, but unfortunately there's no money in it. All Gollancz would give me in advance on the book was PS20! With novels it's easier to be sure of a sale, but I've now got an idea for a really big novel, I mean big in bulk, & I want to lie fallow before doing it. Of course God knows what hope there is of making a living out of writing in the future or where we'll all be a few years hence. If the war really gets going one may get a chance of a scrap after all. Up to date I haven't felt greatly moved to join the army because even if one can get past the doctors they make all the older men into pioneers etc. It's ghastly how soon one becomes 'older'.
There is not much happening in England. As far as I can gather people are fed up with the war but not acutely so. Except for small sections such as Pacifists etc. people want to get it settled & I fancy they'd be willing to go on fighting for 10 years if they thought the sacrifices were falling equally on everybody, which alas isn't likely with the present Government in office. The Government seem to have done all their propaganda with the maximum of stupidity & there'll probably be hell to pay when people begin to grasp that fighting the war means a 12-hour day etc., etc. The new paper Horizon is going very well, sells about 6,000 or 7,000 already. Gollancz has grown a beard & fallen out with his Communist pals, partly over Finland2 etc., partly because of their general dishonesty which he's just become alive to. When I saw him recently, the first time in 3 years, he asked me whether it was really true that the G.P.U. had been active in Spain during the civil war, & told me that when he tied up with the Communists in 1936 he had not known that they had ever had any other policy than the Popular Front one. It's frightful that people who are so ignorant should have so much influence. The food situation is quite O.K., & I think what rationing there is (meat, sugar, butter)3 is actually unnecessary & done just to teach people a lesson. They've recently had to double the butter ration as they found the stocks going bad on them. I am busy getting our garden dug & am going to try & raise 1/2 ton4 of potatoes this year, as it wouldn't surprise me to see a food shortage next winter. If I thought I was going to be here all the time I'd breed a lot more hens & also go in for rabbits.
Eileen would send love if she was here.
Yours
Eric
[XII, 607, pp. 137-8; handwritten]
1.'Frank Richards' (= Charles Hamilton, 1876-1961), author of many of the stories (although not unaidedly as he claimed), responded in Horizon, May 1940 (see XII, 599, pp. 79-85). He did take up the matter of snobbishness among other things.
2.The Soviet Union invaded Finland on 30 November 1939. A peace treaty was signed on 13 March 1940, after a bitterly fought winter campaign.
3.Rationing of food started on 8 January 1940. Adults were allowed four ounces of butter a week; twelve of sugar; four of bacon or ham uncooked, and three and a half cooked. Meat was rationed from 11 March 1940 and clothes from 3 June 1941. As the war progressed, rationing became much more severe, and, indeed, worsened still more during the first years of peace.
4.An ambitious quantity (1,120 lbs.) which Orwell later reduced to 6 cwt (672 lbs.).
To Rayner Heppenstall*
16 April 1940
The Stores
Wallington
Dear Rayner,
Thousands of congratulations on the kid. I hope and trust both are doing well. Please give Margaret all the best and my congratulations. What a wonderful thing to have a kid of one's own, I've always wanted one so. But, Rayner, don't afflict the poor little brat with a Celtic sort of name that nobody knows how to spell. She'll grow up psychic or something. People always grow up like their names. It took me nearly thirty years to work off the effects of being called Eric. If I wanted a girl to grow up beautiful I'd call her Elizabeth, and if I wanted her to be honest and a good cook I'd choose something like Mary or Jane. The trouble is that if you called her Elizabeth everyone would think you'd done it after the queen, as she presumably will be some day.
Thanks for the photos but you didn't tell me what the negative etc. cost. I chose the ones marked 3 and 5 to send to the people. I thought the one marked 3 the best likeness, but naturally I know my own face best from the front. Let's hope the photo will have the desired effect. Seeing that it's for people at the other end of the world I don't know why one shouldn't send a photo of some nice-looking boy in the Air Force or something. I am afraid I definitely lack glamour, because I get quite a lot of letters from readers nowadays, but it's always from people snootily pointing out some mistake I've made and never from young women telling me I'm a sheik. I had some wonderful letters once from a midwife, and I wrote back not telling her I was married, but in the end to Eileen's great glee she turned out to be 35 and have 4 children.
I don't know when I'll be in town. I am buried under books I keep reviewing and not getting on with my own book. God knows whether it will ever get written or whether such things as publishing novels will still be happening two years hence. All the best.
Yours
Eric
[XII, 612, pp.146-7; typewritten]
To Geoffrey Trease*
1 May 1940
As from The Stores
Wallington
Dear Mr Trease,
Please excuse this paper, which is far from being my own,1 but I am on a sort of hurried visit to London. I was very glad to get your letter. From what you say I dare say you saw either my last book Inside the Whale or else the essay from it that was printed in Horizon, & in connection with that two people had written to me telling me of your Bows against the Barons etc. I'm going to get hold of them, not only because I greatly enjoyed It's Only Natural2 but because there is no question that this matter of intelligent fiction for kids is very important for I believe the time is approaching when it might be possible to do something about it. I don't think it's unimagina
It makes me laugh to see you referring to me as 'famous' & 'successful'. I wonder if you know what my books sell--usually about 2000. My best book, the one about the Spanish war, sold less than 1000, but by that time people were fed up with Spanish war books, as well they might be.
I'd like to meet some time3
Yours sincerely
George Orwell
[XII, 618, pp. 156-7; handwritten]
1.Orwell used Dr Laurence O'Shaughnessy's paper, headed 49 Harley Street, London, W.1.
2.The correct title is Only Natural. Orwell reviewed it on 26 April 1940 (XI, 616,
p. 154).
3.Trease replied at some length on 5 May 1940 from Gosforth, Cumberland. He said that if Orwell did have time and inclination to take further any scheme of publications for children--'good vivid writing with the right slant'--he could count on Trease for anything he could do to help. He did not think the Trades Union Congress 'could ever assimilate such a new and interesting idea' but the Co-operative Movement was 'a more promising field'. He also suggested W. B. Curry, head of Dartington Hall (an experimental, independent school in Devon that placed great emphasis on the arts); he might tap some of the 'millions which lie behind that experiment'.
To the Editor, Time and Tide
22 June 1940
Sir: It is almost certain that England will be invaded within the next few days or weeks, and a large-scale invasion by sea-borne troops is quite likely. At such a time our slogan should be ARM THE PEOPLE. I am not competent to deal with the wider questions of repelling the invasion, but I submit that the campaign in France and the recent civil war in Spain have made two facts clear. One is that when the civil population is unarmed, parachutists, motor cyclists and stray tanks can not only work fearful havoc but draw off large bodies of regular troops who should be opposing the main enemy. The other fact (demonstrated by the Spanish war) is that the advantages of arming the population outweigh the danger of putting weapons into the wrong hands. By-elections since the war started have shown that only a tiny minority among the common people of England are disaffected, and most of these are already marked down.
ARM THE PEOPLE is in itself a vague phrase, and I do not, of course, know what weapons are available for immediate distribution. But there are at any rate several things that can and should be done now, i.e. within the next three days: 1. Hand grenades. These are the only modern weapon of war that can be rapidly and easily manufactured, and they are one of the most useful. Hundreds of thousands of men in England are accustomed to using hand grenades and would be only too ready to instruct others. They are said to be useful against tanks and will be absolutely necessary if enemy parachutists with machine-guns manage to establish themselves in our big towns. I had a front-seat view of the street fighting in Barcelona in May, 1937, and it convinced me that a few hundred men with machine-guns can paralyse the life of a large city, because of the fact that a bullet will not penetrate an ordinary brick wall. They can be blasted out with artillery, but it is not always possible to bring a gun to bear. On the other hand, the early street fighting in Spain showed that armed men can be driven out of stone buildings with grenades or even sticks of dynamite if the right tactics are used.
2. Shotguns. There is talk of arming some of the Local Defence Volunteer1 contingents with shotguns. This may be necessary if all the rifles and Bren guns are needed for the regular troops. But in that case the distribution should be made now and all weapons should be immediately requisitioned from the gunsmiths' shops. There was talk of doing this weeks ago, but in fact many gunsmiths' windows show rows of guns which are not only useless where they are, but actually a danger, as these shops could easily be raided. The powers and limitations of the shotgun (with buckshot, lethal up to about sixty yards) should be explained to the public over the radio.
3. Blocking fields against aircraft landings. There has been much talk of this, but it has only been done sporadically. The reason is that it has been left to voluntary effort, i.e. to people who have insufficient time and no power of requisitioning materials. In a small thickly-populated country like England we could within a very [few] days make it impossible for an aeroplane to land anywhere except at an aerodrome. All that is needed is the labour. Local authorities should therefore have powers to conscript labour and requisition such materials as they require.
4. Painting out place-names. This has been well done as regards sign-posts, but there are everywhere shopfronts, tradesmen's vans, etc., bearing the name of their locality. Local authorities should have the power to enforce the painting-out of these immediately. This should include the brewers' names on public houses. Most of these are confined to a fairly small area, and the Germans are probably methodical enough to know this.
5. Radio sets. Every Local Defence Volunteer headquarters should be in possession of a radio receiving set, so that if necessary it can receive its orders over the air. It is fatal to rely on the telephone in a moment of emergency. As with weapons, the Government should not hesitate to requisition what it needs.
All of these are things that could be done within the space of a very few days. Meanwhile, let us go on repeating arm the people, in the hope that more and more voices will take it up. For the first time in decades we have a Government with imagination, and there is at least a chance that they will listen.
[XII, pp. 192-3; typewritten]
1.Orwell attended a conference on the formation of the Local Defence Volunteers, which he joined, at Lord's Cricket Ground on 12 June 1940. This was later re-named the Home Guard. Orwell was soon promoted Sergeant in C Company, 5th County of London Battalion and proved a keen and innovative member. His lecture notes survive and are included in the Complete Works.
To Sacheverell Sitwell*
6 July 1940
18 Dorset Chambers
Chagford Street
Ivor Place NW 1
Dear Mr. Sitwell,
I had your book on poltergeists to review for Horizon and was very interested by it. I could only do a review of about 600 words and I don't know whether they'll print all of that, as they haven't much space. When I read that very creepy incident you describe of the girl medium dressing dummies or arranging clothes about the room, it brought back to me a memory of 10 years ago which I thought you might like to hear, as I believe it has a remote bearing on your subject.
About ten years ago I was out for a walk on Walberswick common, near Southwold, in Suffolk, with a backward boy I was tutor to at the time.1 Under a gorse bush the boy noticed a neatly tied-up parcel and drew my attention to it. It was a cardboard box about 10'' by 6'' by 3'' deep. Inside we found that it was lined with cloth and made up like a little room, with tiny furniture made of matchwood and scraps of cloth glued together. There were also (for the sake of complete accuracy I must say that I am not sure whether these were in the same box or another) some tiny female garments including underclothes. There was also a scrap of paper with 'This is not bad is it?' (or nearly those words) written on it in an evidently feminine hand. The neatness and flimsiness of the whole thing made me feel sure it had been made by a woman. What chiefly impressed me was that anyone should go to the trouble of making this t